“How you doin’, bro?”
“Awesome! Your man Marcus is one cool fucker. He fixed me up with some grade-A shit. You want some?”
“Nah, I’m good,” I said, sitting up reluctantly. “If I smoke anything today, I’ll fall asleep.” I’d already felt my eyelids closing in the warm sunshine.
Sean laughed loudly. “Yeah, right! Nothing to do with the fact that your tight-assed girlfriend is here,” he spat the word venomously.
“Hey!” I said, elbowing him in the ribs. “Don’t talk about Yans like that.”
“Whatever,” he slurred, then lurched to his feet. “Let me know when she gives you your balls back.”
I watched him stagger away, crashing into the bunch of guys playing football.
“Asshole,” I muttered.
Yansi was right—something was up with Sean, but the mood he was in, I didn’t think he’d be letting me in on what was bugging him. Maybe we could hang later in the week—if I wasn’t working or sleeping.
I yawned and stretched. If I didn’t get up and do something, I’d be spending the day with my eyes closed. I watched Yansi talking to Esther and Megan. Esther saw me and shook her head.
“Girl time!” she yelled.
Yansi laughed at the expression on my face, then blew me a kiss. All the guys whooped and yelled, and I felt my cheeks heat up. Fuck ‘em; just because they didn’t have a girlfriend as hot as Yans.
I decided to go for a swim. The tide was way out, and the beach was wide and flat. The light gray-brown sand was soft as sugar and burning hot. I broke into a jog, relieved when the ripples splashed up my legs. I dove into the water, the light turning hazy as I opened my eyes, a slight sting from the salt, but one I was well used to.
The beach seemed distant when I surfaced, and I was amazed how far I’d swum. Yansi was right—even in just a week of yard work, my muscles had gotten stronger. It felt good. It felt really good. I swam further, enjoying the silky feel of the sun-warmed water on my skin. When I turned to look at the beach again, I could just make out a figure standing on the shore watching me.
She raised a hand and waved.
My girl. Looking out for me. And then the sudden realization hit me, I love her.
I was so surprised I nearly sank, and then panic started to set in. I must be wrong. I liked Yansi; I liked her a lot. But it wasn’t love, no way. I couldn’t love her. Love was too big, too risky, and people you loved died.
But the idea wouldn’t go away. With every beat of my heart, the truth pulsed through me, You love her, you love her, you love her.
It was the scariest fucking thing ever.
She was waiting for me, paddling at the edge of the water, stunning in a pale yellow bikini that showcased her curvy body; her long hair loose, begging for me to tangle my fingers in it.
I love her.
“Hey, you,” she smiled. “The food’s ready. But I wasn’t going to put out the Yiyimbre till you got back in.”
I offered her a weak smile, afraid to meet her eyes, knowing that she was too good at reading me.
She frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Just … tired,” I stuttered.
Her raised eyebrows told me that she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t call me on it either.
“Okaaay,” she said slowly, and held out her hand.
Her skin was hot against mine and darker. I stared at our joined hands, feeling a jolt of painful pleasure, as if someone had jumpstarted my heart. Maybe she had.
She didn’t try to talk to me as we walked back to join the others. Unlike most girls who seemed to think they had to talk 24/7 to keep a guy interested, Yansi didn’t make me talk when I didn’t want to. And right now I couldn’t. Words kept sticking in my throat, and I felt dumb in more than one way.
When we joined the others, at least I had the distraction of loading up a plate with some food. I knew Yansi wasn’t buying the whole ‘tired’ excuse, but I knew she wouldn’t force the issue in front of other people either.
“Oh my God, my parents are so stupid!” laughed a girl. “They totally believed me when I told them I’d never smoked weed and I never would. Are they serious?”
“Yeah, well your mom thinks Santa Claus is real and that you’re still a virgin!”
“Bitch! Like you can talk?”
“At least your parents let you have your own car. Mine are so pathetic—they say I have to share with my sister. I really hate them.”
Yansi threw me a sympathetic look and moved our towels further away. She knew I couldn’t stand it when other kids whined about their parents, calling them losers and assholes. I’d have given anything to be able to complain about curfews or parent-teacher conferences. Julia did some of that stuff instead now, but it wasn’t the same; it never would be again.
I didn’t feel hungry anymore, so I set the plate down on the sand and pulled my sunglasses over my eyes.
“You never talk about your mom,” Yansi said quietly.
I didn’t reply.
“I wish I’d known her.”
Mom was already sick when Yansi and I started dating. We didn’t know at first. Or if Mom knew, she didn’t say anything. I guess I just hadn’t noticed, or noticed but not realized what it meant. I remember small things that she did or didn’t do—not finishing the take-out food, even though it was her favorite chicken enchiladas; losing weight even though she’d been on every diet known to woman, and it had never made any difference; and just being tired all the time.
I remember her asking me why I was late back from school one day. She knew I hadn’t been with Sean, because he’d stopped by on his way home, looking for me, pissed when I wasn’t there. And I admitted that I was seeing someone—someone I liked a lot.
I thought I’d get another lecture about respecting women and being safe—but I didn’t. She just gave a small smile and said she was glad that I’d found someone.
“When can I meet her?” she asked.
I told her, Soon, maybe, but I hadn’t meant it, and then it was too late.
Mom knew it as well, because in small ways, she started preparing us, me and Julia. Suddenly, it was important for her to tell me that that main valve for the house’s water supply was at the back of the garage, and that the electricity bill was monthly. I listened halfheartedly, itching to be outside, surfing or skating or shooting the breeze with Sean; Julia pursed her lips and kept looking at her watch. And I don’t know why Mom didn’t scream at us: Pay attention! I’m not going to be here to hold your hand.
And I didn’t bother to listen when she told us to wash dark loads and white loads separately in the machine; and Julia was impatient, saying she already knew that; Mom, tired and defeated, trying to pass on a lifetime of advice in just a few short weeks.
Because that’s the thing about cancer … even when the doctors give you a deadline, it still sneaks up on you. They don’t like to be too certain—I suppose they can’t. But they never say, You’re not going to need to order a turkey for Thanksgiving this year, or, I don’t think you’ll get much use out of your Christmas sweater.
So despite everything, I think dying took Mom by surprise. And she forgot to pay the phone bill. We only found out when the landline stopped working and it took weeks to reconnect. So we didn’t have any internet either. And that’s at the same time as having to pick out a coffin, even though Mom had left instructions that she wanted a cremation. She said not to pick a real expensive one because it’s only going to get all burned up anyway.
Julia said Mom wanted a cremation because she was afraid of the dark. I thought it was because she was creeped out by the thought of being in the ground with all the worms and bugs and then they’d … you know. But she’d always hated yard work too, even though she liked it to look nice. So it might have been because of that and because she didn’t want to put us in the position of tending her grave. But I’m just guessing because I was too chicken shit to ask her anything real when she was dying.
So Mom never
met Yansi. I think she would have liked her though.
Mom always had a soft spot for Sean, even when he was the reason I got detention every afternoon for three weeks for putting saran wrap over the toilets in the staff restrooms when we were in ninth grade. I think she felt sorry for Sean. And he made her laugh.
The second to last thing Mom said to me was, Don’t forget to put out the recycling.
The last thing I said to her was after the nurse had given her a morphine shot because the pain-relief cannula didn’t seem to work anymore. I said, Don’t rub where she’s injected, Mom, or it’ll bruise.
So the very last thing she said was, It hurts.
Why didn’t she tell me about my dad? Why didn’t I ask? Because that would mean admitting something real. But I didn’t ask and now I’ll never know. But shouldn’t she have told me?
It really sucks being pissed at someone who’s dead.
In the days leading up to the funeral, I wondered what sort of things I’d tell people if I knew I was dying. Well, I wouldn’t tell Julia anything, because she already knew everything there was to know, or that’s what it seemed like. I didn’t even like the willow coffin she picked out because I thought it looked like a hamper. She said that was stupid and that Mom would have chosen it for herself. I don’t know—Mom hated doing laundry as much as I do, so I didn’t think she’d like being stuck in one, but Julia started crying again, so I didn’t say anything after that.
I guess I’d tell Sean that he always stops paddling for a wave about two seconds too soon, which means he’s never at the best place to pop up, which means he loses a lot of waves that he should have caught. I’d tell Mrs. McInnery, my math teacher, that all the students laugh at her because she has a mustache, and not because they don’t like her. I’d tell Erin Lenz that sleeping with half the guys in Junior class is never going to make her popular. I’d tell Yansi that asking her out is the smartest thing I’ve ever done, and that waiting for her to turn 17 before I could ask her out again is the second smartest thing I’ve ever done.
And I’d tell myself to ask my dying mom about my sperm donor father, because I’d never get the chance otherwise. But then again, maybe I’d tell myself not to bother, because I had one really great parent, and that’s more than some people get.
“She’d have liked you,” I said to Yansi.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’d have loved you.”
Yansi smiled.
Maybe she knew that was the closest I could get to telling her myself.
I lay in bed with the curtains drawn back and the window wide open.
Not that it made a damn bit of difference. The air was heavy with a damp heat, and I could hear the sound of mole crickets, crackling like radio static. I was so used to them, it was almost white noise. But tonight, I couldn’t get the sounds out of my head.
I shoved the wrinkled sheet completely off my body, trying to find a cool spot on the bed, and wished again that Julia wasn’t such a bitch about having the air-conditioning on.
A couple of weeks ago, I casually mentioned that Mom used to let us have A/C in the summer, and my sister nearly took my throat out. Yeah, over-reaction much.
She acted like just saying Mom’s name was a blasphemy or something.
Sean said that I shouldn’t take Julia’s shit, and that half the house was mine, too. I hadn’t really thought of it like that until he mentioned it. But I guess he was right: I owned a house. Well, half a house. I imagined drawing a line down the middle. We could have half the bath tub each, but the toilet would be on my side, and I’d make her pay a toll every time she used it. But then that would mean she’d get the half of the house with the coffee maker and the fridge. Maybe I could get a used fridge for my half of the house, then I could have cold soda and leave the door open all night to cool my room, too. Or maybe just buy an air-conditioning unit and hope she didn’t notice the increase in the electric bill.
We’d have to share the computer because I needed it for school, and Julia used it for work. Mom had bought it two years ago, so it was kind of ancient now. Maybe I’d let Julia buy me out and I’d get a new one with that and the money left over from work. Then I could watch porn whenever I wanted.
Sean had a really good stash of DVDs that he’d borrowed from his brothers—the kind of borrowing where nobody knows that you borrowed it and you don’t give it back either. I had the stack of magazines that he’d finished with, too. Although I got a bit queasy at the thought of used porn mags. A guy’s gotta have standards, even if they’re low ones—and some of the pages were stuck together, which was kind of gross.
Not that I needed photos like that to get a boner. Seeing Yansi in that little yellow bikini today—that had given me spank-bank material for months.
She’d let her hair loose and it hung down to her waist, all thick and glossy. I imagined wrapping it around my hands and losing myself in her sweet, spicy scent.
Just thinking all that had me good and hard, and seeing as it didn’t look like I’d be getting to sleep anytime soon, I decided to go with the flow.
I kept a small bottle of lotion that I’d swiped from Julia’s side of the bathroom cabinet for times like now. I mean, you can use spit, but it’s not so good, and … you know … chafing.
So I reached under the bed and squirted some of that fruity shit onto my hands. It smelled kind of sweet, but I’d shower it off in the morning.
It felt good to touch myself. Hell, I’d been doing it since I hit puberty. When I was a kid, I imagined some actress off of the TV or a model in Julia’s magazines. Sean liked Pamela Anderson, and made me watch a ton of ‘Baywatch’ reruns. I’d always preferred brunettes, like Megan Fox. But these days, I couldn’t help but think of Yansi’s hands on me, imagining what it would feel like to have her mouth, her body around me.
Holy shit, that image always worked quickly. My legs stiffened, my heart rate went up and I was breathing hard like I’d just paddled out through a set of eight-foot waves. My dick was throbbing like a mofo and that amazing tingling sensation started shooting around my body. I broke out into goose bumps on my chest, and the head of my dick became super sensitive so it was almost too much to touch it on the up-strokes. My butt muscles clamped up and my toes curled. I could feel the cum welling up, like filling a glass with water until…
I jerked all over my stomach, thick trails of cum, and imagined doing that on Yansi’s chest. I felt a bit guilty for using her like that, but not really all that much.
I lay there catching my breath. It amazed me that a couple of minutes of beating the meat was more exhausting than half a day of yard work for Mr. Alfaro. Weird. Maybe God didn’t want you to enjoy sex too much, so it was rationed by how fit you were. They should tell you that in gym class—you’d have guys lining up for extra workouts.
Yeah, I had some strange thoughts when I was spiraling down from having shot my bolt.
Sean said he had hallucinations, like someone was whispering in his ear when he was coming down. He said it freaked him out so much this one time that he thought someone had come into his room. He’d ended up slapping his school book across his stomach to hide the mess.
Two pages of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ got glued together so he never did find out what happened when Boo Radley went into Scout’s bedroom. I don’t think he cared either, but he had to tell Mr. Donovan that he dropped carbonara sauce on it. I don’t think Mr. Donovan believed him. Maybe he thought Sean was jerking off to ninth grade literature. Maybe English teachers would like to think that books turn students on that much.
It happens a lot in school. Not in the bathrooms so much, because they’re pretty disgusting. I’m just saying that if you’re a substitute teacher, look out for the kid sitting at the back, or the one whose desk is kind of away from the others. Oh, and sweaters lying over people’s laps when it’s pushing a hundred degrees in the shade. Not just dudes either. Macie Peters would do it and let you watch if you paid her $10. I didn’t hav
e the money, so Sean cut her a deal: $15 so we could both watch. That was pretty nice of him, I thought. That’s when we were in eighth grade.
I didn’t tell Yansi that sort of shit: I wasn’t dumb. I mean, she probably knew, but it was in the bro code.
I was just falling asleep when Julia started moaning, her headboard thudding against the wall. I threw my pillow over my face. I so didn’t want to hear my sister getting nailed.
I made a mental note to sneak into her room tomorrow and move her freakin’ bed away from the wall. Sheesh. A guy shouldn’t have to listen to that in his own house.
Sean’s brothers had been back from college for a few weeks, and I’d been invited to go eat dinner with the family.
I’d known Sean since third grade, so I’d met his parents a bunch of times, although not really that many for the length of time we’d been friends. I never felt all that comfortable in their house, and Sean preferred hanging out at my place anyway. I’d always thought it was because his older brothers were ragging on him, but even when Patrick moved out last Fall, Sean still preferred my place.
I’d heard him complain about his parents enough times to know that they put a lot of pressure on all their kids. Plus, his older brothers had been lettermen and Sean wasn’t into that ego bullshit. He partied, he surfed. I guess that was one of the reasons we were friends.
The few times I’d had dinner at his house, it had always been kind of formal—like his mom insisted on setting the table with silverware and napkins. At my house, it was takeout, TV dinners or sitting on the rickety back porch while Mom charred something on the grill.
When Mom died, Mrs. Wallis made a point of coming over with a pot roast and meals to put in the freezer. Julia thanked her and made small talk; I watched Sean’s mom as she tried not to notice the peeling wallpaper or sagging sofa. I hated seeing my home through her eyes.
Sean had stood awkwardly, hands in his pockets, cringing when his mom offered “sincere condolences”. She’d met Mom maybe five times in eight years and they hadn’t really got along. Whatever.
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